8 most explosive comments from Gary Oldman's Playboy interview

Magazine profiles of Hollywood superstars are usually fairly safe, guarded affairs designed to promote an actor's latest screen role - not so Gary Oldman's sitdown with Playboy to promote Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The British acting icon didn't hold back, discussing everything from Mel Gibson to Alec Baldwin's recent meltdowns to questioning Academy members' voting habits.

"I do have particular views and opinions that most of this town doesn't share," he observed. Here are 8 of the most explosive comments from Oldman's Playboy interview.

1. On why the world "has gone to hell"..."I listen to the radio and hear about these lawsuits and about people like this high school volleyball coach who took it upon herself to get two students to go undercover to do a marijuana bust. You're a f**king volleyball coach! This is not 21 Jump Street."

"Or these helicopter parents who overschedule their children. There's never any unsupervised play to develop skills or learn about hierarchy in a group or how to share. The kids honestly believe they are the center of the f**king universe."

2. On "social decay" through pop culture..."Reality TV to me is the museum of social decay. And what passes for music - it's all on that plateau. Who's the hero for young people today? Some idiot who can't f**king sing or write or who's shaking her ass and twerking in front of 11-year-olds."

3. On struggling to get a movie made if it isn't part of a franchise..."I have a script I've written called Flying Horse. It's about Eadweard Muybridge, the 19th century photographer who arguably invented cinema and had a very interesting life. It's been nearly two years trying to get money. I have my cast pretty much, but the funding isn't there. Partly, it's the subject. If it had zombies and Leonardo DiCaprio in it, people would be falling over me."

4. On Mel Gibson's indiscretions..."I don't know about Mel. He got drunk and said a few things, but we've all said those things. We're all f**king hypocrites. That's what I think about it. The policeman who arrested him has never used the word 'n***er' or 'that f**king jew'? I'm being brutally honest here. It's the hypocrisy of it that drives me crazy. Or maybe I should strike that and say 'the N word' and 'the F word', though there are two F words now."

6. On using comedy and satire to disguise political incorrectness..."If I called Nancy Pelosi a c**t - and I'll go one better, a f**king useless c**t - I can't really say that. But Bill Maher and Jon Stewart can, and nobody's going to stop them from working because of it. Bill Maher could call someone a f*g and get away with it. He said to Seth MacFarlane this year, 'I thought you were going to do the Oscars again. Instead they got a lesbian.' He can say something like that. Is that more or less offensive than Alec Baldwin saying to someone in the street, 'You f*g'? I don't get it."

7. On religion..."Oh, f**k the pope! So this interview has gone very badly. You have to edit and cut half of what I've said, because it's going to make me sound like a bigot."

8. On voting during awards season..."At the Oscars, if you didn't vote for 12 Years a Slave, you were a racist. You have to be very careful about what you say. I do have particular views and opinions that most of this town doesn't share, but it's not like I'm a fascist or a racist. There's nothing like that in my history...